Level Up! Inc.

Level Up! Inc., also known as Level Up! Philippines, was a PC live service game publisher in the Philippines that operated the live service gaming portal Level Up!. It was established in 2002 and became the first live service publisher in the country that operated officially licensed games when online gaming was limited to non-commercial groups running private servers on games like Ultima Online.

The company was bought out by Thailand-based Asphere Innovations PCL (formerly known as Asiasoft Corporation) in 2014. While the Level Up! brand was retired, Philippine operations are continued by PlayPark Inc. using the PlayPark brand.

Level Up! Inc. was established in 2002 to become the first online game publisher in the country. The startup published OZ World, the first locally-published online game in the country, followed by Ragnarok Online, the first MMORPG, in 2003. While other game publishers were established following Level Up!'s success, the company remained the uncontested market leader. It was estimated that Level Up! controlled 80% of the online gaming market by 2006.

In 2005, Level Up! International Holdings Pte. Ltd. (LUIH) was incorporated in Singapore as Level Up! Inc.'s parent company. LUIH would purse ventures into other countries such as Brazil and India using the Level Up! brand.

In February 2006, ePLDT, Inc., owner of netGames Inc., bought a majority stake in Level Up! Inc. from LUIH. The new ownership resulted in the merger of netGames and the Level Up! brand.

During that time, IP E-Game Ventures Inc., a start-up live service game publisher which operated the E-Games portal, launched commercially in March 2006, and would eventually be Level Up!'s major competitor on the market.

By 2010, the live service gaming industry for PC was already showing signs of decline with the rise of mobile gaming.

ePLDT sold its entire interest in Level Up! Inc. on July 11, 2011. On September 1, 2011, it was announced that LUIH had re-acquired the ownership shares from ePLDT, Inc. and that Level Up! Inc., effective that day, would sub-license all of its games to a new Philippine live service publisher, Playweb Games Inc.^[1]

On February 14, 2012, as the PC live service gaming market in the country continued to weaken, an agreement was signed between IP E-Game and Level Up! Inc. to merge both of their live service gaming operations. The agreement states that most of IP E-Game's assets and games would be transferred to Level Up! Inc. and the publishing operations would be merged into Playweb Games. In exchange, IP E-Game would receive equity in Level Up! Inc., a commercial interest in Playweb Games, and a cash consideration. The agreement was completed on March 30, 2012.

In February 2014, the entirety of Level Up! Inc.'s stocks were bought by Asiasoft - 70% from LUIH and 30% from IP E-Game. It expanded Asiasoft's market directly in the Philippines.

Playweb Games Inc. was re-established as PlayPark Inc., and the Level Up! brand would eventually be phased out in favor of Asiasoft's own PlayPark portal.

1. Level Up! Inc. Sub-licenses Games to Playweb Games Inc.. September 1, 2011 at 12:30AM. Cho. Level Up! news. Retrieved on 2023-12-05.